The Friday Play: The Seven White Masks Of Scaramouche

The seemingly ageless Warren Mitchell (pictured) plays a 100-year-old clown in this original play for radio by actor and playwright Justin Butcher.

Scaramouche Jones, born in Trinidad as the 19th Century drew to a close, is approaching the end of his life in the dying days of the 20th. His story, a vivid comic odyssey through history, offers an idiosyncratic perspective on the most tumultuous events of that period.

Although Scaramouche's paternity is uncertain, he likes to think of himself as an Englishman. Smuggled out of Trinidad in a barrel, he spends many years accompanying a snake charmer around Africa, survives a concentration camp, and arrives in bomb-damaged London for the Festival of Britain in 1951, at which point he decides to become a clown.